1. Last week, I asked the First Minister about the Cabinet Secretary for Justice’s involvement in the decision to prevent the chief constable from returning to work. She said nine times that all Michael Matheson did was ask questions of the Scottish Police Authority’s decision. However, in evidence this morning to the Public Audit and Post-legislative Scrutiny Committee, the former chair of the SPA revealed that Mr Matheson’s involvement went far beyond that. He said that, in their private meeting, the justice secretary told him that the SPA had made a bad decision. Which version of events is true?

I have heard extracts of this morning’s committee session. I have not managed to listen to all of it, but I do not think that Ruth Davidson is correct in her characterisation of the evidence that was heard this morning. Andrew Flanagan said, for example, that the justice secretary did not request that he change his decision. What the justice secretary did was ask questions about the steps that had been taken. Andrew Flanagan also expressly said that he was not directed by the justice secretary.

As I said last week, there is a clear distinction here between, on the one hand, the operational independence of the SPA and, of course, of the police in matters that no justice secretary should intervene in and, on the other hand, the proper role of a justice secretary in making sure that due process is followed. Michael Matheson asked legitimate questions about the steps that had been taken leading up to the decision to ask the chief constable to return to work. For example, had the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner been asked whether his return to work would compromise the on-going investigation? Secondly, had the senior command been notified? We heard the acting chief constable say earlier in the week that that was not the case. Thirdly, had plans been put in place for the welfare of officers who had raised concerns?

The reason, as I heard it this morning, why Andrew Flanagan felt that he had no option but to change his decision was that he could not answer those questions about process. It is entirely legitimate, and I think that the public would have expected it, for the cabinet secretary to do what he did.

I come back finally to the point that Ruth Davidson could not address last week. If her position is that the justice secretary should not have asked those legitimate questions, is she saying that she thinks that the chief constable should have returned to work without any of those issues having been properly explained? I am prepared to bet that, if that had happened, she would have been standing up in the chamber saying how outrageous that was. In those circumstances, she might actually have been right.

The evidence that emerged this morning might be inconvenient for the First Minister, but she cannot pretend that it does not contradict her earlier answers. This morning, the former chair of the SPA was asked whether he felt that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice had made “a value judgment” on the decision, and he said yes. Just hours after their one-to-one, Michael Matheson hauled the chair of the SPA back in for another meeting—this time with civil servants—in which he raised issues of process that would prevent the chief constable’s return. The chair of the SPA called that a “one-sided” meeting and said that he felt that he had “no choice” but to reverse the decision of his independent board. He said that he changed his mind based on the cabinet secretary being unhappy.

The independent chair of an independent body had two meetings with the justice secretary. In the first, he was told that he had made a bad decision. After the second meeting, he was left in no doubt that he had to reverse that decision. How can that possibly tally with what Scottish National Party ministers have claimed in recent weeks?

The First Minister:

The key aspects of the evidence are clearly inconvenient for Ruth Davidson. As I said earlier, Andrew Flanagan clearly said that he had not been requested by the justice secretary to change his decision and that he was not directed to do so. Questions were asked and, as I said last week—I repeat it today—I absolutely take the view that the justice secretary was right to ask those questions.

I again invite Ruth Davidson to address this point. If she does not take the view that a decision to invite the chief constable to return to work without asking the PIRC whether that would compromise an on-going investigation, without telling the acting chief constable and the rest of the senior command, and without putting in place any plan for the welfare of officers who had raised concerns and made complaints would be a defective one, is it her position that it would have been a good decision and that the chief constable should have returned to work the following day?

I think that it was right to ask those questions, and I again put it to members and the Scottish people that, if the justice secretary had not asked any of those questions and the chief constable had turned up to report for work at Tulliallan the next morning, Ruth Davidson and other Opposition leaders would have come to the chamber and demanded statements, and no doubt demanded that the justice secretary consider his position. There is rank hypocrisy at play, and everybody can see it.

The First Minister asked what I would have done. I would have ensured that my justice secretary let the Parliament and the country know about the decisions that he was making.

The most damning thing of all is that now—on 25 January—we are still having to piece together the details of what happened at the beginning of November, when the Government was involved in one of the most important policing decisions that it has taken since it came to office. We are only now getting formal evidence that the justice secretary was absolutely instrumental in preventing the chief constable’s return. If it had not been for reports in the press, the whole thing would have been kept under wraps and the Parliament would have been kept in the dark.

When the national force was set up, we were told that transparency would be its watchword. Can the First Minister really stand there and claim that this episode has shown that to be true?

The First Minister:

We are getting a clear picture that, in the unlikely event that Ruth Davidson was First Minister, the chief constable would have come back to work that day without any relevant questions being asked. That is not the kind of governance that the people of Scotland expect and deserve.

On the issue of what Parliament knows, there is nothing that Ruth Davidson has brought to Parliament today that is different from what she brought to it last week. The reason for that is that there was nothing in what we heard this morning that changes what was already known. The justice secretary came to Parliament, gave a full statement and answered questions from across the chamber about exactly what had happened, and nothing that we have heard since then has changed the facts that the justice secretary put to Parliament. We also had a debate in the chamber yesterday, brought by the Tories, on which they lost the vote because they had not made the argument that they are trying to make.

The point is that the justice secretary, discharging his responsibilities, asked legitimate questions. If those who say that he should not have asked those legitimate questions really take that position, they have to explain to the Scottish people why they think that it would have been right for the chief constable to return to work without any consultation with the organisation that is carrying out an investigation, without the acting chief constable even being told about it and without any concern for the welfare of other officers. That may be Ruth Davidson’s position; it is not my position, which is that the justice secretary acted entirely appropriately.

Let us cut through all of this. Last week the First Minister stood there and told the chamber nine times that her justice secretary did nothing but ask a few questions. We now know that that is not true. We know that he made it clear that the SPA’s decision was wrong. She says that Mr Matheson did not instruct the process, but we now know that the SPA’s former chair left his second meeting with the justice secretary feeling that he had no choice but to overturn the authority’s decision.

Last week, the First Minister stood there and told me that Michael Matheson did not intervene, but does the evidence this morning not show that there is a different story? Does it not make it clear that—bluntly—the justice secretary leaned on the SPA?

The First Minister:

With the greatest of respect, it shows no such thing. Andrew Flanagan, the former chair of the SPA, said at the committee this morning that he had not been requested by the justice secretary to change his decision. He had no option—in his view—but to change his decision, because he could not answer the most basic questions about the process that had been followed.

Again, we come back to the nub of the issue. Ruth Davidson has changed ground with every question that she has asked today, but the nub of the issue is this. If she is saying that the justice secretary should not have asked those questions and acted in the way that he did, by definition she must be saying that the chief constable should simply have been allowed to return to work, no matter that none of those basic steps had been followed.

Ruth Davidson keeps saying that, last week, I said nine times that I thought the justice secretary had behaved entirely appropriately. I have said it several times again today, so let me say it one more time: the justice secretary acted entirely appropriately, he acted in the interests of the people of Scotland and, faced with the same circumstances again, he would do the same and ask the same legitimate questions all over again.